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Posted by Emily Schechter, Chrome Security Product Manager TeamFor the past several years, we’ve moved toward a more secure web by strongly advocating that sites adopt HTTPS encryption. And within the last year, we’ve also helped users understand that HTTP sites are not secure by graduallymarking a larger subset of HTTP pages as “not secure”. Beginning in July 2018 with the release of Chrome 68, Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as “not secure”.

In Chrome 68, the omnibox will display “Not secure” for all HTTP pages.

Developers have been transitioning their sites to HTTPS and making the web safer for everyone. Progress last year was incredible, and it’s continued since then:

Over 68% of Chrome traffic on both Android and Windows is now protected

Over 78% of Chrome traffic on both Chrome OS and Mac is now protected

81 of the top 100 sites on the web use HTTPS by default

Chrome is dedicated to making it as easy as possible to set up HTTPS. Mixed content audits are now available to help developers migrate their sites to HTTPS in the latest Node CLI version of Lighthouse, an automated tool for improving web pages. The new audit in Lighthouse helps developers find which resources a site loads using HTTP, and which of those are ready to be upgraded to HTTPS simply by changing the subresource reference to the HTTPS version.

Lighthouse is an automated developer tool for improving web pages.Chrome’s new interface will help users understand that all HTTP sites are not secure, and continue to move the web towards a secure HTTPS web by default. HTTPS is easier and cheaper than ever before, and it unlocks both performance improvements and powerful new features that are too sensitive for HTTP. Developers, check out our set-up guides to get started.

Posted by Jan Keller, Google VRP Technical Pwning MasterAs we kick-off a new year, we wanted to take a moment to look back at the Vulnerability Reward Program in 2017. It joins our past retrospectives for 2014, 2015, and 2016, and shows the course our VRPs have taken.

At the heart of this blog post is a big thank you to the security research community. You continue to help make Google’s users and our products more secure. We looking forward to continuing our collaboration with the community in 2018 and beyond!

2017, By the Numbers

Here’s an overview of how we rewarded researchers for their reports to us in 2017:We awarded researchers more than 1 million dollars for vulnerabilities they found and reported in Google products, and a similar amount for Android as well. Combined with our Chrome awards, we awarded nearly 3 million dollars to researchers for their reports last year, overall.

A few bug highlightsEvery year, a few bug reports stand out: the research may have been especially clever, the vulnerability may have been especially serious, or the report may have been especially fun and quirky!

Here are a few of our favorites from 2017:

In August, researcher Guang Gong outlined an exploit chain on Pixel phones which combined a remote code execution bug in the sandboxed Chrome render process with a subsequent sandbox escape through Android’s libgralloc. As part of the Android Security Rewards Program he received the largest reward of the year: $112,500. The Pixel was the only device that wasn’t exploited during last year’s annual Mobile pwn2own competition, and Guang’s report helped strengthen its protections even further.

Researcher "gzobqq" received the $100,000 pwnium award for a chain of bugs across five components that achieved remote code execution in Chrome OS guest mode.

Alex Birsan discovered that anyone could have gained access to internal Google Issue Tracker data. He detailed his research here, and we awarded him $15,600 for his efforts.

Making Android and Play even saferOver the course of the year, we continued to develop our Android and Play Security Reward programs.No one had claimed the top reward for an Android exploit chain in more than two years, so we announced that the greatest reward for a remote exploit chain--or exploit leading to TrustZone or Verified Boot compromise--would increase from $50,000 to $200,000. We also increased the top-end reward for a remote kernel exploit from $30,000 to $150,000.

Today, we’re expanding the range of rewards for remote code executions from $1,000 to $5,000. We’re also introducing a new category that includes vulnerabilities that could result in the theft of users’ private data, information being transferred unencrypted, or bugs that result in access to protected app components. We’ll award $1,000 for these bugs. For more information visit the Google Play Security Reward Program site.

And finally, we want to give a shout out to the researchers who’ve submitted fuzzers to the Chrome Fuzzer Program: they get rewards for every eligible bug their fuzzers find without having to do any more work, or even filing a bug.

Given how well things have been going these past years, we look forward to our Vulnerability Rewards Programs resulting in even more user protection in 2018 thanks to the hard work of the security research community.* Andrew Whalley (Chrome VRP), Mayank Jain (Android Security Rewards), and Renu Chaudhary (Google Play VRP) contributed mightily to help lead these Google-wide efforts.

This post is a broader announcement of plans already finalized on the blink-dev mailing list.Update, 1/31/18: Post was updated to further clarify 13 month validity limitationsAt the end of July, the Chrome team and the PKI community converged upon a plan to reduce, and ultimately remove, trust in Symantec’s infrastructure in order to uphold users’ security and privacy when browsing the web. This plan, arrived at after significant debate on the blink-dev forum, would allow reasonable time for a transition to new, independently-operated Managed Partner Infrastructure while Symantec modernizes and redesigns its infrastructure to adhere to industry standards. This post reiterates this plan and includes a timeline detailing when site operators may need to obtain new certificates.

On January 19, 2017, a public posting to the mozilla.dev.security.policy newsgroup drew attention to a series of questionable website authentication certificates issued by Symantec Corporation’s PKI. Symantec’s PKI business, which operates a series of Certificate Authorities under various brand names, including Thawte, VeriSign, Equifax, GeoTrust, and RapidSSL, had issued numerous certificates that did not comply with the industry-developed CA/Browser Forum Baseline Requirements. During the subsequent investigation, it was revealed that Symantec had entrusted several organizations with the ability to issue certificates without the appropriate or necessary oversight, and had been aware of security deficiencies at these organizations for some time.

This incident, while distinct from a previous incident in 2015, was part of a continuing pattern of issues over the past several years that has caused the Chrome team to lose confidence in the trustworthiness of Symantec’s infrastructure, and as a result, the certificates that have been or will be issued from it.

After our agreed-upon proposal was circulated, Symantec announced the selection of DigiCert to run this independently-operated Managed Partner Infrastructure, as well as their intention to sell their PKI business to DigiCert in lieu of building a new trusted infrastructure. This post outlines the timeline for that transition and the steps that existing Symantec customers should take to minimize disruption to their users.Information For Site Operators

Starting with Chrome 66, Chrome will remove trust in Symantec-issued certificates issued prior to June 1, 2016. Chrome 66 is currently scheduled to be released to Chrome Beta users on March 15, 2018 and to Chrome Stable users around April 17, 2018.

If you are a site operator with a certificate issued by a Symantec CA prior to June 1, 2016, then prior to the release of Chrome 66, you will need to replace the existing certificate with a new certificate from any Certificate Authority trusted by Chrome.

Additionally, by December 1, 2017, Symantec will transition issuance and operation of publicly-trusted certificates to DigiCert infrastructure, and certificates issued from the old Symantec infrastructure after this date will not be trusted in Chrome.

Around the week of October 23, 2018, Chrome 70 will be released, which will fully remove trust in Symantec’s old infrastructure and all of the certificates it has issued. This will affect any certificate chaining to Symantec roots, except for the small number issued by the independently-operated and audited subordinate CAs previously disclosed to Google.

Site operators that need to obtain certificates from Symantec’s existing root and intermediate certificates may do so from the old infrastructure until December 1, 2017, although these certificates will need to be replaced again prior to Chrome 70. Additionally, certificates issued using validation information from Symantec’s infrastructure will have their validity limited to 13 months. Alternatively, site operators may obtain replacement certificates from any other Certificate Authority currently trusted by Chrome, which are unaffected by this distrust or validity period limit.Reference Timeline

The following is a timeline of relevant dates associated with this plan, which distills the various requirements and milestones into an actionable set of information for site operators. As always, Chrome release dates can vary by a number of days, but upcoming release dates can be tracked here.

DateEventNowthrough ~March 15, 2018Site Operators using Symantec-issued TLS server certificates issued before June 1, 2016 should replace these certificates. These certificates can be replaced by any currently trusted CA.~October 24, 2017Chrome 62 released to Stable, which will add alerting in DevTools when evaluating certificates that will be affected by the Chrome 66 distrust.December 1, 2017According to Symantec, DigiCert’s new “Managed Partner Infrastructure” will at this point be capable of full issuance. Any certificates issued by Symantec’s old infrastructure after this point will cease working in a future Chrome update.From this date forward, Site Operators can obtain TLS server certificates from the new Managed Partner Infrastructure that will continue to be trusted after Chrome 70 (~October 23, 2018). December 1, 2017 does not mandate any certificate changes, but represents an opportunity for site operators to obtain TLS server certificates that will not be affected by Chrome 70’s distrust of the old infrastructure.~March 15, 2018Chrome 66 released to beta, which will remove trust in Symantec-issued certificates with a not-before date prior to June 1, 2016. As of this date Site Operators must be using either a Symantec-issued TLS server certificate issued on or after June 1, 2016 or a currently valid certificate issued from any other trusted CA as of Chrome 66.Site Operators that obtained a certificate from Symantec’s old infrastructure after June 1, 2016 are unaffected by Chrome 66 but will need to obtain a new certificate by the Chrome 70 dates described below.~April 17, 2018Chrome 66 released to Stable.~September 13, 2018Chrome 70 released to Beta, which will remove trust in the old Symantec-rooted Infrastructure. This will not affect any certificate chaining to the new Managed Partner Infrastructure, which Symantec has said will be operational by December 1, 2017.Only TLS server certificates issued by Symantec’s old infrastructure will be affected by this distrust regardless of issuance date.~October 23, 2018Chrome 70 released to Stable.